WsgiBoostServer

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WsgiBoostServer is a multi-threaded WSGI and HTTP server written as a Python extension module in C++ using Boost.Asio and Boost.Python. It can serve both Python WSGI applications and static files. Because it is written in C++, WsgiBoostServer is faster than pure Python solutions, like Waitress. It can be used for hosting Python micro-services and/or static files.

Main Features

WSGI Server:

Compliant with PEP-3333.
Releases GIL for pure C++ operations, allowing more effective multi-threading.
Can be used as a regular module in any Python application.

HTTP Server:

Works on pure C++ level, effectively bypassing GIL.
Determines MIME for most file types.
Uses gzip compression for common textual formats: txt/html/xml/css/js/json.
Supports If-Modified-Since header.
Supports Range header.
Checks if requested files are really located within specified content folders to forbid requesting files by arbitrary paths (for security reasons).

Benchmarks

Performance benchmarks of WsgiBoostServer compared to popular Python WSGI servers can be found here. According to those benchmarks WsgiBoostServer has about 2 times better performance than the best Python-based WSGI server.

Compatibility

OS: Windows, Linux. In theory, WsgiBoostServer can be built and used on any OS that has a C++ 11/14-compatible compiler and supports Python setuptools.
Python: 2.7+ (tested on 2.7 and 3.5).
Boost: tested with 1.58, 1.60-1.62, but probably will work with earlier versions that are not too old.
Compilers: GCC 4.9+, MS Visual Studio 2015 Update 2+ (regardless of Python version).

Usage

Simple example using Flask micro-framework:

#!/usr/bin/env python

from flask import Flask
import wsgi_boost

app = Flask(__name__)


# Simple Flask application
@app.route('/')
def hello_world():
    return 'Hello World!'


# Create a server on the port 8080 with 4 threads
httpd = wsgi_boost.WsgiBoostHttp(port=8080, num_threads=4)
httpd.set_app(app)
httpd.start()

Also see examples folder.

Compilation

Normally, WsgiBoostServer is compiled using setuptools setup script.

Linux

WsgiBoostServer can be compiled on any Linux distributive that uses GCC 4.9+ as the default system compiler, for example Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus). The procedure below assumes that you are using Ubuntu 16.04.

First, install prerequisites:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev python-pip zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev libboost-all-dev

Then download or clone WsgiBoostServer sources to your computer.

To build against Python 3 you need to install the respective libraries, for example python3-dev and python3-pip.

Then build:

$ python setup.py build

To install into the current Python environment:

$ python setup.py install

Run tests:

$ python setup.py test

To build against Python 3 use python3 instead of python (on those distributions that still use Python 2 by default).

Alternatively, you can install WsgiBoostServer using pip:

$ pip install git+https://github.com/romanvm/WsgiBoostServer.git#egg=WsgiBoostServer

pip will download WsgiBoostServer sources, compile the binary module and install it into your working Python environment.

Windows

Compiled wheels for Python 2.7 and 3.5 (32 bit) can be downloaded from "Releases" tab of this repository. If you want to compile WsgiBoostServer for Windows yourself, follow the instruction below. You can also check AppVeyor CI build configuration appveyor.yml.

Tools required: MS Visual Studio 2015 Update 2+, Cmake

Note that WsgiBoostServer setup.py script monkey-patches the default distutils complier on Windows and uses MS Visual Studio 2015 regardless of Python version used to compile the extension module.

Procedure

Download zlib sources from zlib Home Site and unpack them into the folder of your choice, for example c:\zlib.

Open console, go to the zlib folder and execute there:

>cmake .

You don't need to compile zlib, Boost.Buld will do that for you.

Now download boost sources from Boost Home Site and unpack them into the folder of your choice, for example c:\boost.

Open Windows console, go to the boost folder and execute there:

>bootstrap

After the bootstrap script finishes building Boost.Build engine, create Boost.Build configuration file user-config.jam in your %USERPROFILE% folder with the following content:

using python : 3.5 : c:\\Python35-32 ;
using msvc : 14.0 ;

The using python parameter should point to the Python version that will be used for building WsgiBoostServer. Change it if necessary.

Now open the console, go to the boost folder and execute there:

>b2 link=static runtime-link=static variant=release --stagedir=c:\boost\msvc14x32 -sZLIB_SOURCE=c:\zlib --with-regex --with-system --with-coroutine --with-context --with-filesystem --with-iostreams --with-date_time --with-python

Note that -sZLIB_SOURCE option should point to your actual zlib folder.

Boost.Build engine will build the necessary libraries to link WsgiBoostServer against and place them into c:\boost\msvc14x32\lib folder. This folder is set by the --stagedir option.

Now you need to set the necessary environment variables. Execute the following commands:

>setx BOOST_ROOT c:\boost
>setx BOOST_LIBRARYDIR c:\boost\msvc14x32\lib

The variables should point to actual folders where Boost header files and libraries are located. Now restart your computer or sign out and then sign in again.

Now you can build and install WsgiBoostServer using the setup.py script or Python pip as described in the preceding Linux section. Note that you must use the same Python version that was used to build Boost.Python library.

gaodoo / WsgiBoostServer